Coeliades lorenzo Evans, 2010

Cock, Matthew J. W., 2010, Observations on the biology of Afro-tropical Hesperiidae (Lepidoptera) principally from Kenya. Part 1. Introduction and Coeliadinae, Zootaxa 2547, pp. 1-63 : 57

Coeliades lorenzo Evans stat. rev.

As stated above under C. kenya , I follow the treatment of Henning et al. (1997), and consider C. lorenzo as a valid species based on differences in the male genitalia ( Evans 1937, 1947; Pringle et al. 1994; Chiba 2009) and the distinctive caterpillars ( Henning et al. 1997). Distribution maps in Henning et al. (1997) suggest that the two species are allopatric, although they share a common border in northern KwaZulu–Natal, and it would be useful confirmation of their status to clarify whether they occur sympatrically.

Coeliades lorenzo feeds on A. natalitius var. linearifolius ( Henning et al. 1997) . The banding of the body of the caterpillar of C. lorenzo illustrated by Henning et al. (1997) is similar in plan to that of C. kenya ( Figure 46 ), but the orange bands and white streaks are not as wide, so that the black ground colour is more pronounced.

Figures

FIGURE 46. Final instar caterpillar of Coeliades kenya collected on Acridocarpus zanzibaricus, Diani Beach, 18 Apr 1990, moulted 7 Apr, photographed 8 Apr, 33mm (90/44B).